


The Morning After, the Night Before

by DoubleNegative



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: And a happy ending, Let's Write Sherlock, M/M, Mrs. Hudson Ships It, Mrs. Hudson makes a mean rum cake, Mrs. Hudson schemes, New Year's Eve, New Years, Prompt Fic, Tumblr: letswritesherlock, a bit of angst, a bit of smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 20:24:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleNegative/pseuds/DoubleNegative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mrs. Hudson has a plan:</p>
<p>1) Lure the boys in with rum cake and mulled wine.<br/>2) Make sure they notice the mistletoe.<br/>3) Shoo them upstairs.<br/>4) Well… we don’t need to lay out all the details, do we, dear?<br/>5) Harass them until they’ve finally talked it out like grown-ups.<br/>6) Compare notes with Mrs. Turner</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Morning After, the Night Before

“Mrs. Hudson, for the love of God, _close the drapes_ ,” Sherlock moaned from the sofa, where he had his head sandwiched between two cushions. John whimpered his agreement from the armchair. The morning light was searingly bright, and it lanced through John’s screwed-shut eyes with ruthless intent. His stomach churned threateningly. He hadn’t had anything to eat in hours, but it didn’t seem to matter. Last night had been one mistake after another, and now he was paying the price a hundred times over.

Mrs. Hudson tsked. “But it’s so lovely and bright out, and it’s awfully gloomy in here. I thought you boys might appreciate a little bit of sunshine,” she said brightly. “Besides, it’s New Year’s Day! Fresh starts, new beginnings--it’s my favorite time of year. Don’t you agree?” She bustled from the windows back to the landing, and John heard the unmistakable sounds of the hoover being plugged in and wheeled over to the carpet.

“Mrs. Hudson, no, please don’t,” John said, unable to keep the pleading note out of his voice.

“No need to fuss, dear, I know I don’t have to,” she said. “Not your housekeeper and all that. But I thought you might like to start the new year off on a good note. A  _clean_ note,” she added, frowning at a pile of what John was fairly sure were owl pellets.

With that, the vacuum cleaner roared to life at a decibel level John had previously assumed was the exclusive province of jet fighters and stampeding bison. He groaned miserably, and curled more tightly into his arm chair. He really thought he’d left this sort of thing behind in uni, but apparently age hadn’t improved his decision-making skills as much as he’d hoped it would.  On the sofa, Sherlock whimpered, and his bare toes twitched in helpless misery. He’d managed to keep most of his clothes on the previous night, but his socks were long gone. John vaguely hoped Mrs. Hudson wouldn’t be the one to find them. On the other hand, perhaps it would serve her right. John’s own shirt was mostly unbuttoned, and while he’d slept on the armchair it had twisted itself around his torso in uncomfortable ways. He shifted in the chair, trying to untangle himself without inviting the nausea back by moving too much.

 

//

 

“Yoohoo, boys!” Mrs. Hudson called from the doorway. “I thought we might have a bit of a New Year’s do, so I made some cake and mulled wine."

“Ta, Mrs. H, that sounds great,” John said. “I’ll wake up Sherlock and we’ll be down in a few.”

“Not actually asleep,” Sherlock said from the sofa, where’d he spent the past three hours with his eyes closed and his hands steepled under his chin, seemingly dead to the world.

“Of course not,” John said. “I know you just ate yesterday, but you think you can manage some cake?”

Sherlock heaved an exaggerated sigh and stood up, tugging at his cuffs and settling his jacket back into place. “I suppose. It will make Mrs. Hudson happy.”

John rolled his eyes and headed out the door. “How selfless of you.”

 

//

 

Despite his pounding head, John forced himself to sit up a little straighter in his chair. As he squirmed, he accidentally bumped a sore spot on his back and winced. Ah. The doorknob. Right. He’d said that would leave a mark, hadn’t he? At the time, it had seemed hilarious. Now it was just one more ache to add to the litany.

Across the room, Sherlock turned over onto his back with an obvious wince, and in the process, pulled his shirt askew just enough to reveal the shadow of a bruise at the base of his throat. Sherlock turned over again, curling up on his other side now, and the bruise was hidden again before John had a chance to get a closer look.

Mrs. Hudson came by with the hoover, running it determinedly around and under John’s chair, heedless of the way it bumped against the chair legs, or the way John’s face screwed up in pain.

“She’s a sadist,” John whispered after she’d gone, and the ringing in his ears had settled to an almost-bearable level. “When did our landlady become a sadist?”

“You oughtn’t be surprised, John,” Sherlock said, in a poor imitation of his usual lofty tones. “Surely you remember the incident with those American CIA thugs. And she went to her husband’s execution, you know. She had a tea for her friends afterwards, and baked me biscuits. The shortbread and raspberry kind. Didn’t even blink.”

“ _Please_ stop talking about food,” John begged him. His stomach was threatening to rebel again, but the idea of actually moving was too much to contemplate.

“I cannot decide which is more horrifying,” Sherlock continued, as if he hadn’t heard him. Maybe he hadn’t; those pillows he still had clutched to his head had to muffle things a bit. “The fact that I am actually _hung over_ or the fact that _Mrs. Hudson_ is the one who drank us both under the table.” He sounded baffled, and more than a little betrayed.

 

 

//

 

Mrs. Hudson, it turned out, had not made just any cake--she’d made rum cake, soaked in so much alcohol John was surprised they weren’t eating it with spoons. The mulled wine, too, packed a serious punch, and John began to wish he’d eaten a larger dinner. One slice of cake and a glass of wine later, and the world was already beginning to take on a soft-focus glow.  It was obvious that Sherlock, seated next to him at the kitchen table, was equally affected. His gestures were a little more expansive, his voice a little more ebullient, his normally-perfect posture a little more relaxed. John could trace the alcohol’s effect on him in the blush rising slowly on his cheeks. The sight was unexpectedly arousing.

John shifted in his seat, feeling his own body heat from more than just the mulled wine. He and Sherlock had only had sex a few times, and only after particularly adrenaline-fueled cases. Each time, it had been spontaneous, frantic, hot, and never, ever mentioned again. John hadn’t even seen Sherlock fully naked yet, but it was all too easy to imagine the way the blush of arousal on his neck and cheeks would spread down across his chest, echoing his darkly-flushed erection.

John shifted again, more uncomfortably this time, and forced himself to focus on Mrs. Hudson’s running commentary about the New Year’s Eve program on the telly. He really could not pursue this train of thought--not now, probably not ever. Sherlock was, as he had made clear, married to his work. While he might occasionally choose to cheat on the work with John, there was no sense in treating those occasions as anything more than an occasional gift. Something to enjoy in the moment, something to re-live in the shower, but not something to rely on.

He made the mistake of glancing over at Sherlock. Sherlock’s hair was a little more mussed now, and he’d taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He raised one eyebrow when he caught John looking, and one side of his mouth quirked up in the faintest hint of a smirk. Damn the man. It was clear he knew exactly what John was thinking about, and was reveling in John’s discomfiture. He pulled his wine glass a little closer and let his fingers slide lightly up and down the stem in a way that sent John’s blood southward in a dizzying rush.

_Well._ Two could play that game.

John licked his lips slowly, deliberately, and spread his legs apart till his knee nudged Sherlock’s thigh. He felt Sherlock tense just slightly before forcing himself to relax again. Good.

“Can I trouble you for another slice, Mrs. Hudson?” John asked, sliding his plate across the table. More alcohol-soaked cake might not be the best idea in the morning, but at that particular moment, he could not be arsed to care.

He ate the cake slowly, letting his eyes drift shut with each bite, sliding the fork slowly between his lips, licking a drop of sugary glaze from his palm. When he caught Sherlock’s eyes next, Sherlock’s pupils were huge, with only a thin halo of silvery-green iris remaining visible.

John’s feeling of victory was short-lived, however--the next thing he knew, Sherlock had a hand under the table and was ghosting his fingers up the outside seam of John’s jeans, finally bringing them to rest on his upper thigh.

“Ooooh, boys,” Mrs. Hudson said with a giggle. “You’re sitting right underneath the mistletoe! I must have forgotten to take it down."

“I do not understand why a sprig of a poisonous plant is supposed to inspire amorous interludes,” Sherlock retorted with a sniff. “It’s a parasitic plant that causes severe gastrointestinal distress if ingested; hardly romantic.” 

John rolled his eyes. _Typical._ So when Sherlock yanked him in for a rough kiss a moment later, as Mrs. Hudson turned to fetch something from the cupboard, John couldn’t quite hold back the tiny gasp of surprised that escaped him. Still, he wasn’t going to turn down a chance to snog Sherlock Holmes. John pressed forward into his mouth greedily, tasting cinnamon and wine, twisting the fingers of one hand through Sherlock’s hair and tugging. Sherlock pulled away with reluctance just before Mrs. Hudson turned back around, another bottle of wine in her hand. Even tipsy, his timing was impeccable.

“Can I top you boys off?” she asked brightly. If she noticed their reddened lips and quickened breath, she didn’t say anything, just refilled their wine glasses without waiting for an answer. John groaned inwardly.

Still, he could not resist slipping his hand under the table and running it up Sherlock’s thigh, stopping with his fingertips barely grazing Sherlock’s growing erection. He let his hand linger there without moving until Sherlock was all but squirming beneath his touch, and then he slid it just a little further, to cup between his legs and squeeze. Sherlock let out a small strangled breath, quickly covered up by a cough, and his fingers twitched around the stem of his glass.

Nothing about this could possibly end well. If they kept going at this rate, neither he nor Sherlock were going to be able to make it up the stairs, let alone make it through anything more… strenuous.

 

 

//

 

“You should get us paracetamol,” Sherlock said, breaking through John’s recollections.

“Get it yourself. I’m not moving,” John replied.

“Yes, but you’re a doctor. You took an _oath_ to help those in pain.”

“Mmm, pretty sure it doesn’t apply when I’m the same condition. Nice try, though.” He shifted around a little so he was sitting more upright in the chair. Paracetamol would be excellent, actually, and he would commit murder for a tall glass of water--but not if he had to hobble all the way across the flat to get it. Now that he’d stretched out his legs a bit, he was finding more bruises. He seemed to recall dropping rather abruptly to his knees, a move which had felt excitingly rough at the time, but which now just seemed… unnecessarily bruising, at least for nearly-middle-aged knees in an uncarpeted room. Still, some things were worth a few bruises.

Mrs. Hudson returned to the flat a few minutes later, toting a bucket full of cleaning supplies, a mop, and an extraordinarily fragrant pot of tea. John had never imagined he’d see the day when even the scent of tea would send waves of nausea crashing over him, but apparently there was a first time for everything.

“I thought I’d do a bit more cleaning,” Mrs. Hudson announced. “And perhaps watch some telly. They’re doing re-runs of Connie Prince all day, you know. Sort of a 'new year, new you' thing. I do miss that show.”

“Mrs. Hudson,” John said, with as much patience as he could manage. “Could you possibly do this later? Or, you know, not at all--you’re not our housekeeper; we really don’t expect you to do the scrubbing up.”

“Oh, no, dear, I don’t mind a bit,” she replied cheerfully. “I’m just in the mood for it today, you know how it is.”

“It’s just--well, we’re a bit hungover. All that mulled wine, you know. And the noise and the smells are a bit, um, a bit much.”

“Why don’t you two go up and get some proper rest, then?” she suggested, flipping on the television. “You can’t have gotten much sleep last night.”

John wondered, once again, exactly how much she had heard after they’d left. Or, for that matter, how much she’d noticed before they’d left. He’d thought they were being subtle, but on the other hand, he’d been quite drunk, and he suspected their landlady was sharper than she generally let on. Bloody hell.

 

//

 

The telly was still on and Mrs. Hudson was still keeping up her monologue, but John didn’t know a bloody thing about what was happening on the screen, or what their landlady was saying. He took another sip of his wine, trying to steady himself, despite the heat pooling between his legs and the intoxicating sensation of Sherlock’s body straining beneath his hand. If they didn’t find a way to get upstairs soon, he was going to spontaneously combust--or just bend Sherlock over the kitchen table, Mrs. Hudson’s sensibilities and favorite china be damned.

He forced himself to remove his hand from Sherlock’s lap, taking a moment to adjust his own aching erection before returning both hands to rest on the table. “I think I'd better turn in, Mrs. H,” he said. “I’m knackered.” He was impressed by the steadiness of his voice, if not by the way he had to clutch the edge of the table to keep the world from tilting as he stood.

“Of course, love,” she said. “I’m awfully tired myself, and it’s past time for my herbal soother. I just don’t know how those young people do it anymore.” She circled the table to where Sherlock was still sitting, hands laid flat and stiff on the table, and bent to kiss his cheek. “Happy New Year, Sherlock, dear. We’ll talk about that odd stain on the carpet tomorrow, shall we?”

“Delightful,” Sherlock replied, in his usual bone-dry tone. There was nothing except a slight sway as he stood to indicate that he was anything except completely in control--but John had seen his pupils blown wide, heard the soft intake of breath when their shoulders brushed. It was, John thought, his favorite part of sleeping with Sherlock, this thrill of finally seeing him in less-than-perfect control, weak-kneed with desire. And if it only happened sporadically--after a particularly intense case, say, or after they’d both been liquored up by their deceptively grandmotherly landlady--well, it was better than nothing.

He let Mrs. Hudson shoo them both out the door, every nerve in his body lit with alcohol and arousal as he mounted the steps with Sherlock crowding close behind him.

“You are going to pay for that, John,” Sherlock whispered, so near that John could feel the puff of his breath against his ear.

John didn’t bother to suppress his shiver, and he tightened his hold on the bannister, letting himself lean, just for a moment, into the warmth of Sherlock’s body. “God, I hope so,” he replied.

Sherlock pushed at his back impatiently, tugging the tails of John’s shirt from his trousers and running his palms underneath to slide over the bare skin of John’s waist. “Hurry _up_.”

“I’m _drunk_ , Sherlock,” John replied, trying not to look as dependent on the handrail as he actually was. “I’m having--I don’t wanna fall.” He giggled, suddenly giddy. “That would be very bad foreplay.” He stumbled a little as he reached their landing, Sherlock still right on his heels. “The worst foreplay.”

Sherlock let out a loud, impatient huff, and shoved John through the door, slamming it behind them and pushing him up against it, right into the doorknob. “I don’t need _foreplay_ ,” he said, practically spitting out the word. “I need _you_.”

“Ow, fuck, Sherlock, that’s the doorknob right in my back,” John said, squirming sideways despite Sherlock’s arms caging him in on either side and Sherlock’s mouth on his collarbone. “Oh, God, that’s-- _oh_.” His hips stuttered involuntarily as Sherlock's teeth scraped over the base of his neck, fingers fumbling with John’s shirt buttons all the while.

“I don’t understand why you wear so many _shirts_ ,” Sherlock said, tugging peevishly at John’s undershirt.

“To piss you off, mostly,” John replied breathlessly, digging his fingers into Sherlock’s arse and grinding shamelessly against him. Sherlock’s answering moan burned right through him. God, that _sound_.

Sherlock, having apparently decided that removing all of John’s shirts was a waste of valuable time, simply spread his button-down and bent his head to mouth John’s nipple through the thin fabric of his undershirt. John let his head fall back against the door and gasped aloud at the drag of Sherlock’s tongue across sensitive skin. “Jesus,” he breathed. He threaded one hand through Sherlock’s hair and tugged him upright again, pulling him in for another rough, sloppy kiss, all teeth and tongue and urgency. He kissed and licked his way down Sherlock's throat, pausing for a moment to suck a bruise low on his neck, then reaching up to kiss him again.

“God, _John_ ,” Sherlock said, breaking the kiss to rest his forehead against John’s, breathing hard.

John didn’t reply, just rocked his hips against Sherlock, letting his eyes flutter shut. Then suddenly he twisted them both around so Sherlock was the one pressed against the door for once, arching into John’s touch, eyes wide with surprise and arousal. John grinned at the sight before him, then dropped to his knees and rubbed his cheek against the impressive bulge distorting the impeccably-tailored lines of Sherlock’s trousers. “John, stop _teasing_ ,” Sherlock said, his voice gone ragged and needy.

“Mmmm, ask nicely,” John said, tugging down Sherlock’s zip and mouthing his cock through the soft cotton of his pants. His mouth was watering with the desire to taste Sherlock, but he couldn’t resist making him work for it, just a little bit.

“God, _please_ ,” Sherlock said, nearly whimpering with need. John smiled against him and relented, finally freeing his cock and swallowing it down in one smooth motion. Sherlock gasped, his fingers scrabbling at the door for a moment before coming to rest on John’s head, curling and uncurling in his hair. The sounds Sherlock was making, the taste of him hot on his tongue, the abortive little jerks of his hips, were all more than John could stand. He reached down with one hand to unzip his own fly and push his pants out of the way, groaning in relief as he finally took himself in hand. He worked his cock roughly, without much finesse, pouring all his concentration into making Sherlock whimper and moan, into making his knees buckle, into making him shout John’s name when he finally came. John followed a few seconds later with his face pressed into Sherlock’s stomach to muffle his cry. It occurred to him, dimly and a bit too late, that they’d been making rather a lot of noise. Hopefully Mrs. Hudson’s herbal soothers were all they were cracked up to be.

 

//

 

In the end, they only managed to get as far as the kitchen, where John reverted to his old habits and fetched them both paracetamol and glasses of water.

Once they were both seated comfortably at the table, sipping at their water and saved from being overheard by the volume at which Connie Prince was excoriating a guest, John decided to voice his suspicions.

“I think Mrs. Hudson is trying to… set us up, or something,” he confessed. “The drinks and the mistletoe, last night, and just now it was like she was trying to herd us off to bed or something. Together.”

Sherlock snorted. “Of course she is. She’s been trying to get me to ‘settle down with someone’ for years. She likes you; she thinks you’re good for me. In her mind, it’s only logical.”

John gathered his courage. “And in your mind?”

For a moment, he could swear that he saw something flicker across Sherlock’s face--regret? longing? wistfulness?--before it shuttered back to its usual smooth mask.“Caring is not an advantage,” Sherlock said crisply, pushing back from the table and stalking off to his room.

“Right,” John muttered. “Of course.”

He went to his own room a few minutes later, gathered fresh clothes, took a shower, had a wank, and steadfastly did _not_ think about the way Sherlock’s voice had cracked over his name the night before, or the way Sherlock had begged John to touch him--as if he had wanted him. As if he had needed him.

 

//

 

They cleaned up in a haze with one of Sherlock’s socks, a degradation Sherlock would never have allowed sober. "If that's how Mrs. Hudson reacts to my coffee stain experiment, then I can't imagine she'll take kindly to semen stains on the doorframe," Sherlock said with a low chuckle, peeling off his second sock and donating it to the cause. "Although the splatter patterns _are_ fascinating."

"Wait, your coffee stain experiment?" John said. "I thought you just had a spill."

Sherlock sniffed, but John didn't miss the way the corners of his mouth twitched. "Everything is an experiment."

Including, probably, this, John thought, with a sinking heart. _Sexual responses in the adult bisexual male, at varying stages of intoxication_ , or something equally clinical. Complete with a monograph, no doubt.

They barely made it the rest of the way into the sitting room before collapsing. Sherlock flopped across the couch and fell asleep almost immediately, snoring softly in a way that John, in his post-orgasmic state of bliss, found almost unendurably sweet. John settled into his chair with the vague idea of forcing himself to stay awake until he’d sobered up a little more, but before long, he was asleep too, adding his snores to Sherlock’s.

 

//

 

Finally, Mrs. Hudson’s cleaning frenzy dissipated, or she simply gave up on her plan to herd them into a relationship via strategic window-scrubbing. She retreated back downstairs, mercifully turning off Connie Prince before she went, and left John and Sherlock to drift back into the sitting room in their own time. John puttered aimlessly through the kitchen and sitting room, making toast and then forgetting to eat it, listening to Sherlock pacing in his room, starting a blog post and then abandoning it.

Eventually Sherlock emerged, skirting past John and heading straight for his chair. John put the kettle on for both of them, out of habit, and if Sherlock seemed especially careful not to brush their fingers together as he accepted the mug from him, John paid it no heed. Something a little strange seemed to be hanging in the air, more than he usually noticed the morning after, but he blamed that on his attempt at conversation in the kitchen. He’d broken their unspoken rules by even alluding to the idea of a relationship. He’d spooked Sherlock, and that meant no more accidental touches, no more assessing glances, until Sherlock regained his equilibrium.

In the meantime… well, he had all the old comforts: he had tea and his chair and a terrible detective novel and a strangely moody flatmate working himself into odd contortions in the armchair opposite. It could be enough.

Across from him, Sherlock ignored the tea and shifted irritably in his chair, folding himself into one awkward position after another. He’d traded in last night’s suit for his lounging clothes and dressing gown and his hair was still damp from his shower, a fact John was doing his best to ignore. Eventually, Sherlock settled down, knees pulled up to his chest and chin resting on top of them while he studied John through narrowed eyes. He resembled nothing so much as an overgrown, very suspicious owl, and John had to fight back a smile while he pretended to read.

“ _You_ don’t think caring is disadvantageous,” Sherlock finally announced, pulling his knees in closer and wrapping his arms around them. Clearly, he’d been having this conversation in his head for the past fifteen minutes, at least, and was only just now deigning to include anyone else. John felt as though he should be used to this sort of thing by now (it went hand-in-hand with Sherlock’s habit of holding conversations with him when he was out of the flat), but it still gave him pause every time.

“Well, no,” John said, cautiously, and set aside his book. Best to just go with it, if he could. “I… I like people, Sherlock. And caring… is something friends do, it’s--not always something you can help, really.”

“You care about me.” It wasn’t phrased as a question, and yet--John was almost certain it was.

“Of course I do. We’re friends, you ridiculous git. You know that.”

“ _Why_ do you care about me, though? You like me, but why? It can’t be something that ‘just happens,’” Sherlock said, his voice tinged with equal parts scorn and confusion.

John sighed. “I like you because it’s impossible _not_ to like you. You’re mad, you’re brilliant, you’re unfairly posh in those suits, even when we’re tromping through Thames mud, and--despite what you seem to think--our life is never, ever boring. You’re rude and inconsiderate and damn funny, and I just--” He broke off to frown at Sherlock, who had brightened considerably under the stream of praise. “This is just a plot to make me say nice things about you.”

“Well, a bit,” Sherlock allowed. “Feel free to continue.”

John rolled his eyes. “What’s brought this on, then?”

Sherlock looked back down at his knees. “I upset you earlier, in the kitchen. I didn’t mean to.”

John sighed. “I know you didn’t, not really. I just… I hoped that maybe, after the time we’ve spent together and--everything else, that--” He stopped, took a breath, gathered his courage. “I’ve never wanted to just be your friend or your flatmate or your blogger, or--whatever. But if you don’t want it, then--it’s fine. It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at him. “You’ve certainly spent enough time announcing to all and sundry that we’re just friends and you’re not gay,” he said.

“But I’m not straight, either,” John said. “I thought maybe the enthusiastic blowjobs made that clear.”

“You keep looking at women,” Sherlock protested. “And taking them out on dates. And yelling at _me_ when the dates end badly.”

John sighed. Sherlock was right on the money, there. “I know. Because I like women, and… it’s a hell of a lot easier to find women to date than men. But--they’re not the ones I, um. Think about. When, you know, I--”  
  
“Masturbate?” Sherlock supplied.

“Yeah,” John said, trying not to blush. He’d sucked the man’s cock, and with considerable enthusiasm. Admitting that he had fantasies about it afterwards should not be so difficult. He forced himself to meet Sherlock’s eyes. It was clear Sherlock still had no idea what John was trying to say. “I think about _you_ , Sherlock. I can’t _stop_ thinking about you.”

“Oh,” Sherlock said. He seemed momentarily nonplussed, before apparently coming to a conclusion. “Well, since all of your recent sexual encounters have been with me, and since it’s easier to build a fantasy around a lived experience than a purely imagined one, it’s only logical that--”

“I’ve been fantasizing about you since the day I moved in.”

Sherlock shut his mouth with an audible click, and John allowed himself a brief moment of congratulations for successfully rendering Sherlock Holmes speechless before he returned to his previously-scheduled panic about declaring himself to his flatmate. Sherlock spent several more seconds just blinking at him, and John could all but see the gears turning behind his eyes as he re-evaluated their every interaction.

“Oh,” he said finally.

“‘Oh’ indeed,” John said softly, moving around the across the room to stand in front of Sherlock, and lifting Sherlock's hands from where they were wrapped around his knees. He waited quietly like that, as the tension slowly seeped from Sherlock's body, as he unfolded his legs, then sat up a little straighter, then, finally, met John's eyes and gave his hands a little squeeze.

John let out a long breath he hadn't realized he was holding and squeezed back, raising first one and then the other of Sherlock's hands to his mouth and dropping a gentle kiss on his knuckles. He knelt down carefully between Sherlock's legs, letting go of his hands only so he could slide his palm around the back of Sherlock's neck and guide him down for a kiss.

It wasn’t frantic for once, wasn’t desperate. John cupped Sherlock's face between his hands as though he was holding onto something precious, and Sherlock gripped John's arms like a lifeline. They tasted each other in delicate sips, in teasing brushes of lips and tongue, and to John it felt like a first kiss and a thousandth kiss wrapped into one. It was familiar, it was new, and if it never stopped he thought he might just die a happy man.

Finally Sherlock pulled away to bury his face against John's neck. "What do you want, John?" he whispered. The brush of his lips against John’s skin sent liquid fire racing through his veins.

"This. Forever, maybe," John replied. “But to be honest my knees are starting to hurt, so I think I'd also like to take you to bed, properly, with a mattress, and take off all your clothes, and continue this conversation that way. Is that--is that what you want?"

  
"Mmm, I can think of quite a lot of things I want," Sherlock said, his voice a dark rumble against John's skin. "But we can start there.”

**Author's Note:**

> For the Let's Write Sherlock Winter Ficlet Challenge, prompt: overindulgence.
> 
> This followed my usual two-step plan for no-fail fic writing, namely: set out to write a gen 221b. Utterly fail to write a gen 221b. Well, we do what we can.
> 
> One thousand thanks are due, as always, to my wonderful betas, Alter and madrona629.


End file.
